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Teachers Have It Easy: The Big Sacrifices and Small Salaries of America's Teachers | 
 enlarge | Authors: Daniel Moulthrop, Ninive Clements Calegari, Dave Eggers
Publisher: New Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95
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You Save: $14.00 (83%)
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Rating:  27 reviews
Sales Rank: 587449
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 1595581286
Dewey Decimal Number: 331.281371100973
EAN: 9781595581280
ASIN: 1595581286
Publication Date: September 5, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The bestselling call to action for improving the working lives of public school teachers—and improving our classrooms along the way.
Since its initial publication and multiple reprints in hardcover in 2005, Teachers Have It Easy has attracted the attention of teachers nationwide, appearing on the New York Times extended bestseller list, C-SPAN, and NPR's Marketplace, in addition to receiving strong reviews nationwide. Now available for the first time in paperback, this groundbreaking book examines how bad policy makes teachers' lives miserable.
Many teachers today must work two or more jobs to survive; they cannot afford to buy homes or raise families. Interweaving teachers' voices from across the country with hard-hitting facts and figures, this book is a clear-eyed view of the harsh realities of public school teaching, without chicken-soup-for-the-soul success stories.
With a look at the problems of recruitment and retention, the myths of short workdays and endless summer vacations, the realities of the work week, and shocking examples of how society views America's teachers, Teachers Have It Easy explores the best ways to improve public education and transform our schools.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 22 more reviews...
 Preaching to the Choir December 30, 2008
The authors of Teachers Have It Easy promise that it won't be a chicken-soup-for-the-soul book, and they sure deliver on that promise. I found the book on the whole to be depressing and discouraging. First of all because, as a teacher I am already aware of the difficulties and sacrifices inherent in the job. Second of all because the book offers very little in the way of hope or practical advice.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not looking for more chicken-soup stories. I find them to be depressing as well, because they tend to gloss over the real difficulties this job entails. They reinforce the perception that teaching is a "special" job in which teachers find their fulfillment in that tiny breakthrough that comes along once every three years.
I am a fifteen year veteran who has had my share of breakthoughs and made my share of connections. I have twice been selected by former students for inclusion in Who's Who Among American High School Teachers; I have been selected as Teacher of the Year; I am respected by my peers, the community, and even most of my students. And yet I would leave the profession tomorrow if I could. The reason has very little to do with money, which seems to be the main thrust of this book. I teach in Michigan, which has consistently ranked near the top in the nation for teachers' salaries coupled with cost of living. My community is the headquarters of two major corporations (one a chemical producer; one a silicon products producer), and my district is one of the best in the state, so the job is better paid than most teaching positions. I earn just under $80 000, but mine is the only income for our family of four. Once the house payment and the two vehicle payments are made (my rust bucket died for the last time last spring, forcing us into a second car payment), there isn't a lot left over. Thankfully we aren't carrying any other debt; however we are not able to put anything aside for our kids' college education and we are putting very little aside for retirement.
Nevertheless, living simply doesn't bother me. The insurance is decent. The vacation schedule is great. The summers are relaxing (yes, we do spend some of the summer on school tasks, but it's much more relaxed). However, the reason I would leave this job in a heartbeat has everything to do with lack of balance and lack of control. It may sound trite, but I think most people don't realize how inconvenient it is to not be able to go to the bathroom whenever you need to. Or how dangerous. Two years ago a colleague of mine was hospitalized for complications due to an enlarged bladder. His doctor told him it was typical of the teaching profession that the bladder gets stretched too much because we have to hold on so long. Lunch lasts 35 minutes and comes at 10:30 am. Teaching is seven straight hours of being on top of my game, every day. I can't have a bad day. I can't step out and decompress for fifteen minutes. Then there is the work load. I easily work 60-70 hours per week. I am constantly telling friends and even my own family that I can't do things with them in the evenings or on the weekends because of the grading and planning I have to do. In order to maintain a modicum of balance between family life and school life I have sacrificed my health. I do not have time to do anything to stay in shape, even though I know that helps relieve stress and restore mental balance. Finally there are the stresses and onerous limitations put on us by the school system itself, a system which constantly increases its expectations of us while decreasing our contact time with students by pulling them out of classes for a myriad of questionable reasons. A system whose restrictions on what I am able to do in my class send the clear message that it does not trust my professional judgement. A system reinventing itself along the lines of a for-profit business, even though that runs contrary to its very nature. A system which continually restricts my freedom in the classroom by implementing common assessments because it is afraid of the parents who might complain that their child received a poor grade from one teacher but might have received a better grade from another teacher. Even the higher-than-average salary turns out to be my jailor rather than my liberator, for it means that at this point in my career I cannot leave my district without taking a cut in pay which I would probably never recoup. Even if I could find a district that would offer me more money, how would my principal respond to that? There would be nothing my district could do to keep me other than to beg. It would simply, sadly have to let me go. Then there is my philosophical concern that the true meaning of education--a search for truth--has been abandoned as our culture has abandoned a belief in truth and has been replaced with a system of test preparation and training for careers in the math and science fields.
Most of these complaints were covered in the book, and are real, valid, debilitating complaints. Yet I am still not fully satisfied with the book. It leaves the impression that any other field is more rewarding (financially and emotionally/spiritually) than teaching. I found the chapter on "A Day in the Life" to be particularly misleading. The teacher example chosen was also a department head, giving him a set of pressures and responsibilities that the majority of teachers do not have. His counterpart was also given an atypical job. Not every non-teacher is a sales rep who can stop off at Best Buy because his vehicle is also his office, or have a $60 lunch paid for by the company. Plus the sales rep is single while the teacher has a family, so of course the sales rep has more time and more disposable income. But even the sales rep job isn't all it's cracked up to be. I have an in-law who does this work and complains that the company constantly increases the size of her region, making it more and more difficult to do her job well. However, I'd have to agree that even an office worker stuck in a soulless, windowless cubicle at least is able to go to the bathroom whenever he needs to.
As for the other ex-teachers, I'd like to have some follow up. I'd especially like to know more about the man who got back into real estate, even though he'd hated it earlier. Does he still hate it, or has he now left real estate for something else? An increased wage and increased freedom of time do not guarantee satisfaction.
Teaching desperately wants to be taken seriously as a profession in the technical sense, yet I have my doubts about its claim to professionalism. I wouldn't want my doctor or my lawyer showing up for work the way many of my colleagues dress. We lack the self-oversight structure that other professions have (e.g. the AMA, APA, ABA). Our so-called continuing education is a joke: pay $600 out of your own pocket for a one week summer course about Microsoft Windows and get three graduate credits. As far as earning the status as a profession, I think teaching still has a ways to go.
Finally, I was looking for some hope in the book, but it never came. The chapter on other districts' creative salary restructuring isn't really inspirational or hopeful, because salary is only one issue among many, and I'd argue it's not even the main issue. Plus, the solutions to the salary question usually entail sacrificing in the other problem area: work load and stress. After nearly 300 pages of being reminded how difficult this job is and how much I'd like to leave it, it would have been helpful to have a chapter assisting teachers who want to leave. How can our skills translate to the private sector? How do we go about marketing ourselves for a career change? Without this kind of chapter the book left me where it found me: clinging by my fingernails to the edge of a cliff, only with an increased sense of how sharp the rocks are below and how futile it is to keep holding on.
Answers December 12, 2008
This book answered a question that has bothered me for some time: What do all those former teachers do for a living?
With tales from aspiring, current, and former teachers of all ages and subject areas, this book tells the truth.
Unfortunately, it seems that teachers (like me) are more interested in reading it than those in a position to aid reform measures.
Honestly, the book was discouraging and fed into another question I tend to ask myself: "What else am I qualified to do?"
I prefer books that motivate and encourage reform, although a section of this book did discuss successful alternative pay systems.
This Really Should Be Read by Most Americans July 19, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you are--or expect someday to be--a parent of school aged children, if you are a taxpayer, or if you are a civic or political leader in your community, this book is one you really MUST read. It is especially important for those who do not personally know a teacher to read this, to understand just a little more what life is really like for these people who are such an important part of our children's lives and who ultimately have such an impact on how our country will function in the years to come. After all, as the authors state:
"Schools are called on to help raise children and assist them in understanding themselves in relation to their world. Schools and teachers are asked to provide basic moral instruction, to teach children right from wrong and how to function as part of a community...In short, we want our schools to help children learn to be valuable to society."
The subtitle of the book emphasizes a major problem in American education today: the "big sacrifices" that teachers make for our children, for the future of this country. "Small salaries" are definitely part of the sacrifice, but looming just as large is the loss of prestige and intense on-the-job pressures teachers face on a daily basis. They are expected to be fully in charge of 20, 25, even more than 30 children every classroom moment, and many have no more than a couple of 5 minute breaks throughout the entire day. Yet the image of teachers seems to fall farther and farther down the scale. "You can do better than THAT," a bright student is told when he or she expresses an interest in teaching--and they can, IF salary and perks are the standard for success.
This book presents, in the words of teachers themselves, what a typical school day, week, year, is like, and the stories of dedicated professionals who have had to leave the jobs they love because they could not support their families are tragic. This is where the real value of this book is found.
However--and this however is one reason for only three stars: in trying to sell the need for higher salaries and new approaches to salary scales and tables (all of which I fully support), the authors inadvertently contribute to the "prestige" problem. Yes, many good teachers have left the profession and other solid candidates have not gone into education because of the poor compensation, BUT there continue to be hundreds of thousands of dedicated, sacrificing professionals who ARE staying in their classrooms and ARE making a difference in kids' lives. By so emphasizing the "brain drain" out of the profession, there is an impression left that only "losers" are entering and/or staying in teaching. This attitude that "we just can't any good teachers anymore" only contributes to the diminished reputation of those willing to do everything they can to continue working with our children, the future of our nation.
The other weakness in the book is that there is no mention of the inequity of school financing in our country because of the heavy reliance on property taxes for funding. As a result, efforts to improve teacher salaries are most possible in more affluent districts, or in isolated charter schools such as the Vaughan Next Century Learning Center, where much of the success of the small program has come from an aggressive fund-raising principal. The authors did provide some excellent examples in the Helena MT and Denver experiments, but I think a little more attention to the realities of having to make changes via votes on bonds, etc., would have been helpful.
Weaknesses aside, try to get this book in the hands of everyone you know who might be able to start to make a difference in how we recognize (and compensate) those who are so involved with our children's lives.
 Teachers Unite! A Great Look at Why Such a Rewarding Job Leave Much to be Desired June 12, 2007
I am a teacher and I love teaching, but there are definitely things that frustrate me to no end. This book is a fair and honest appraisal of what's wrong with teacher pay, contracts, and even the public's opinion of teachers. I have recommended it to every teacher I know as well as many of the parents I know personally. It should be on every parent's -- especially every school committee member's -- summer reading list. Find out why "those who can -- teach" and how you can support your community's teachers in their pursuit for what's best for our children and our future.
When Will We Change This Insane System? May 16, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I am involved as a volunteer at my local high school and I sit on a number of parent/citizen committees, so I have a pretty good look inside the education system. I have always known that teachers were underpaid, as well as underappreciated, but never knew just how bad the situation was until I began to work with the school. I was truly appalled at how poorly teachers were compensated for the work that they do.
This book is a very good look at the system and what it is doing to teachers. It is written in a Studs Terkel fashion, with interviews from teachers around the country on pay issues, as well as other problems teachers face. While much of it is compensation oriented, it also deals with the lack of funding for continuing education, lack of respect, long work days, and the pressures teachers face.
One particularly telling chapter was when they lined up the day of a pharmaceutical salesman with that of a high school math teacher. Both were real, and it amazing to see the differences. It outlines not only the length of the work day, but the responsibilities in proportion to the pay.
I find it amazing that here in California, as we face a prison crisis, guards in the prisons, without college educations are making $73,000 a year without applying overtime, yet teachers who are at the top end of the salary scale, with a masters or doctorate degree are lucky to come anywhere near close to that. In addition, teachers do not collect overtime. If we paid good teachers what they are worth, and improved educational opportunities for children, we could possibly cut the number of inmates. The cycle is vicious, but we need to take paying teachers seriously, and work to change the system so good teachers are willing to stay.
The book is well written and the interviews are fascinating. Sadly, although I think everyone in America needs to read this book, it will probably only be read by those who know about the problem, or those who are contemplating a future in education. The majority of people who think teachers actually do have it easy will pass it by without a second look. To that degree, the book is preaching to the choir, but is still a wonderful read.
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